GLOBAL BANKING: THE BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS
PART 1 of 2

 

 

 

Patrick Wood
October 19, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

 

Preface

When David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski founded the Trilateral Commission in 1973, the intent was to create a "New International Economic Order" (NIEO). To this end, they brought together 300 elite corporate, political and academic leaders from North America, Japan and Europe.

Few people believed us when we wrote about their nefarious plans back then. Now, we look back and clearly see that they did what they said they were going to do... globalism is upon us like an 8.6 magnitude earthquake.

The question is, "How did they do it?" Keep in mind, they had no public mandate from any country in the world. They didn't have the raw political muscle, especially in democratic countries where voting is allowed. They didn't have global dictatorial powers.

Indeed, how did they do it?

The answer is the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), self-described as the "central bank for central bankers", that controls the vast global banking system with the precision of a Swiss watch.

This report offers a concise summation of BIS history, structure and current activities.

Introduction

The famous currency expert Dr. Franz Pick once stated, "The destiny of the currency is, and always will be, the destiny of a nation."

With the advent of rampant globalization, this concept can certainly be given a global context as well: "The destiny of currencies are, and always will be, the destiny of the world."

Even though the BIS is the oldest international banking operation in the world, it is a low profile organization, shunning all publicity and notoriety. As a result, there is very little critical analysis written about this important financial organization. Further, much of what has been written about it is tainted by its own self-effacing literature.

The BIS can be compared to a stealth bomber. It flies high and fast, is undetected, has a small crew and carries a huge payload. By contrast, however, the bomber answers to a chain of command and must be refueled by outside sources. The BIS, as we shall see, is not accountable to any public authority and operates with complete autonomy and self-sufficiency.

Leading up to Founding

As we will see, the BIS was founded in 1930 during a very troubled time in history. Some knowledge of that history is critical to understanding why the BIS was created, and for whose benefit.

There are three figures that play prominently in the founding of the BIS: Charles G. Dawes, Owen D. Young and Hjalmar Schacht of Germany.

Charles G. Dawes was director of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget in 1921, and served on the Allied Reparations Commission starting in 1923. His latter work on "stabilizing Germany's economy" earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925. After being elected Vice President under President Calvin Coolidge from 1925-1929, and appointed Ambassador to England in 1931, he resumed his personal banking career in 1932 as chairman of the board of the City National Bank and Trust in Chicago, where he remained until his death in 1951.

Owen D Young was an American industrialist. He founded RCA (Radio Corporation of America) in1919 and was its chairman until 1933. He also served as the chairman of General Electric from 1922 until 1939. In 1932, Young sought the democratic presidential nomination, but lost to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

More on Hjalmar Schacht later.

In the aftermath of World War I and the impending collapse of the German economy and political structure, a plan was needed to rescue and restore Germany, which would also insulate other economies in Europe from being affected adversely.

The Versailles Treaty of 1919 (which officially ended WWI) had imposed a very heavy reparations burden on Germany, which required a repayment schedule of 132 billion gold marks per year. Most historians agree that the economic upheaval caused in Germany by the Versailles Treaty eventually led to Adolph Hitler's rise to power.

In 1924 the Allies appointed a committee of international bankers, led by Charles G. Dawes (and accompanied by J.P. Morgan agent, Owen Young), to develop a plan to get reparations payments back on track. Historian Carroll Quigley noted that the Dawes Plan was "largely a J.P. Morgan production"[1] The plan called for $800 million in foreign loans to be arranged for Germany in order to rebuild its economy.

In 1924, Dawes was chairman of the Allied Committee of Experts, hence, the "Dawes Plan." He was replaced as chairman by Owen Young in 1929, with direct support by J.P. Morgan. The "Young Plan" of 1928 put more teeth into the Dawes Plan, which many viewed as a strategy to subvert virtually all German assets to back a huge mortgage held by the United States bankers.

Neither Dawes nor Young represented anything more than banking interests. After all, WWI was fought by governments using borrowed money made possible by the international banking community. The banks had a vested interest in having those loans repaid!

In 1924, the president of Reichsbank (Germany's central bank at that time) was Hjalmar Schacht. He had already had a prominent role in creating the Dawes Plan, along with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen and other prominent German bankers and industrialists.

The Young Plan was so odious to the Germans that many credit it as a precondition to Hitler's rise to power. Fritz Thyssen, a leading Nazi Industrialist, stated

Some historians too quickly credit Owen Young as the idea-man for the Bank for International Settlements. It was actually Hjalmar Schacht who first proposed the idea[3], which was then carried forward by the same group of international bankers who brought us the Dawes and Young Plans.

It is not necessary to jump to conclusions as to the intent of these elite bankers, so we will instead defer to the insight of renowned Georgetown historian, Carroll Quigley:

So here we have a brief sketch of what led up to the founding of the BIS. Now we can examine the nuts and bolts of how the BIS was actually put together.

The Hague Agreement of 1930

The formation of the BIS was agreed upon by its constituent central banks in the so-called Hague Agreement on January 20, 1930, and was in operation shortly thereafter. According to the Agreement,

As we will see, German reparation payments (or lack thereof) had little to do with the founding of the BIS, although this is the weak explanation given since its founding. Of course, Germany would make a single payment to the BIS, which in turn would deposit the funds into the respective central bank accounts of the nations to whom payments were due. (It would be the subject of another paper to show the shallowness of this operation: Money and gold were shuffled around, but the net amount that Germany actually paid was very small.)

The original founding documents of the BIS have little to say about Germany, however, and we can look directly to the BIS itself to see its original purpose:

Virtually every in-print reference to the BIS, including their own documents, consistently refer to it as "the central banker's central bank."

So, the BIS was established by an international charter and was headquartered in Basle, Switzerland.

BIS Ownership

According to James C. Baker, pro-BIS author of The Bank for International Settlements: Evolution and Evaluation, "The BIS was formed with funding by the central banks of six nations, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. In addition, three private international banks from the United States also assisted in financing the establishment of the BIS."[7]

Each nation's central bank subscribed to 16,000 shares. The U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, did not join the BIS, but the three U.S. banks that participated got 16,000 shares each. Thus, U.S. representation at the BIS was three times that of any other nation. Who were these private banks? Not surprisingly, they were J.P. Morgan & Company, First National Bank of New York and First National Bank of Chicago.

On January 8, 2001, an Extraordinary General Meeting of the BIS approved a proposal that restricted ownership of BIS shares to central banks. Some 13.7% of all shares were in private hands at that time, and the repurchase was accomplished with a cash outlay of $724,956,050. The price of $10,000 per share was over twice the book value of $4,850.

It is not certain what the repurchase accomplished. The BIS claimed that it was to correct a conflict of interest between private shareholders and BIS goals, but it offered no specifics. It was not a voting issue, however, because private owners were not allowed to vote their shares.[8]

Sovereignty and Secrecy

It is not surprising that the BIS, its offices, employees, directors and members share an incredible immunity from virtually all regulation, scrutiny and accountability.

In 1931, central bankers and their constituents were fed up with government meddling in world financial affairs. Politicians were viewed mostly with contempt, unless it was one of their own who was the politician. Thus, the BIS offered them a once-and-for-all opportunity to set up the "apex" the way they really wanted it -- private. They demanded these conditions and got what they demanded.

A quick summary of their immunity, explained further below, includes

Further, members of the BIS board of directors (for instance, Alan Greenspan) are individually granted special benefits:

Lastly, all remaining officials and employees of the BIS have the following immunities:

Of course, a corporate charter can say anything it wants to say and still be subject to outside authorities. Nevertheless, these were the immunities practiced and enjoyed from 1930 onward. On February 10, 1987, a more formal acknowledgement called the "Headquarters Agreement" was executed between the BIS and the Swiss Federal Council and basically clarified and reiterated what we already knew:

Article 2
Inviolability

Article 4
Immunity from jurisdiction and execution

Subscribe to the NewsWithViews Daily News Alerts! Enter Your E-Mail Address:

As you can see, the BIS, its directors and employees (past and present) can do virtually anything and everything they want, with complete secrecy, immunity and with no one looking over their shoulders. It was truly a banker's dream come true, and it paved the international freeway for the rampant financial globalism that we see manifest today. Don't miss the stunning conclusion! Click on part 2 below.

Click Here For Part-----> 2

Footnotes:

1, Quigley, Tragedy & Hope, (MacMillan, 1966), p.308
2, Edgar B Nixon, ec., Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, Volume III (Cambridge: Balknap Press, 1969) p. 456
3, Sutton, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, (GSC & Associates, 2002) p. 26
4, Quigley, op cit, p. 324
5, BIS web site, Extracts from the Hague Convention, www.bis.org/about/conv-ex.htm
6, BIS, Statutes of the Bank for International Settlements Article 3 [as if January 1930, text as amended on March 10,2003], Basic Texts (Basle, August 2003), p. 7-8
7, Baker, The Bank for International Settlements: Evolution and Evaluation, (Quorum, 2002), p. 20
8, ibid., p. 16
9, BIS, Protocol Regarding the Immunities of the Bank for International Settlements, Basic Texts, (Basle, August 2003), p. 33
10, ibid, Article 12, p.43.
11, ibid, p. 44
12, BIS, Extracts from the Headquarters Agreement, www.bis.org/about/hq-ex.htm

� 2005 Patrick Wood - All Rights Reserved